


We've made promises (now keep them)

by camichats



Series: Colors, Soulmates, and other things Bucky can't live without [2]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Iron Man 2, M/M, Palladium Poisoning, Soulmates, dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 02:32:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11499924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camichats/pseuds/camichats
Summary: Tony and Bucky once promised they'd grow old together. The arc reactor has other plans.





	We've made promises (now keep them)

**Author's Note:**

> Back by popular demand…! This is a sequel to [A pinky promise means something (when it’s with your soulmate)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11428377/chapters/25605525). For Iron Man 1, Bucky, Pepper and Tony teamed up with Shield to arrest Obadiah-- he’s alive and in jail-- so the world doesn’t know about Iron Man (much) but Shield does, therefore Vanko and Hammer are not issues here. This is dealing with Tony’s palladium poisoning and basically nothing else. Apparently I write soulmates and Iron Man 2 for this pairing and nothing else.

Bucky knew there was something wrong with Tony. Not because of Afghanistan, at least not directly. It had taken a few months after his return for Bucky to relearn him-- things that had once been perfectly okay were now firmly in the “Never do” pile. Beaches on hot days, for example, were a hard no with his current aversion to both water and burning sand. Not that Bucky minded, he couldn’t swim with the arm and sand always got in the plates and took hours to meticulously clean.

But right now… right now there was something else. Some piece of information he was missing that Tony wasn’t sharing but was crucial. He was pulling away, and Bucky couldn’t figure out how to stop him, how to pull him back in where he belonged.

“What are you working on?” Bucky asked, eyeing the blue hologram with half a mind. It wasn’t an Iron Man suit, although Tony was working on that as well.

“Stark Expo.”

“Like the ones Howard did?” Bucky asked, thinking back to the one he and Steve had gone to together. They’d brought a mated pair of dames that lived next door along so they could have a night out without worrying someone would bother them. Steve had been his usual punkass self, and he had been tempted to throw him over his shoulder and haul him around just so Bucky would have company while the gals had their date. He didn’t, but the night hadn’t been a total loss. The Expo had been fantastic, though Bucky hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how he wouldn’t live to see any of the inventions in everyday life.

Tony nodded. “But better.”

“Obviously,” Bucky said, giving him a half-smile that wasn’t returned. It should’ve been; mentioning Howard’s failures almost always lifted Tony’s spirits. “Tony…” Bucky saved the plans and closed them so Tony didn’t have a distraction at the ready. “Talk to me,” he pleaded.

“DUM-E made me a health smoothie today, it was quite delicious considering he mixed vegetables _and_ fruits without paying attention, but it’s a definite improvement from when he first started, you remember that?”

“Yeah,” he said softly. DUM-E hadn’t understood that what he needed weren’t the same things humans needed or could even survive. Tony wasn’t one to reminisce unless it was a special occasion. “You’ve never cared about having an Expo before, why now?”

“Publicity,” Tony answered automatically.

“I’m not the press, doll.”

Tony sighed, then started rubbing the flat of his hands on the smooth surface in front of him.

Bucky recognized it as a way to ground him but hated that Tony had to use it around him. Was he the problem here? Did Tony want space? He firmly put a hold on that line of thinking; he and Tony had agreed years ago that they would talk about it if either of them wanted that. _Just give him time, let him know you’re here for him_.

“It’s about legacy,” he said, staring into the depths of the table. “I don’t want mine to be weapons and blood.”

“It isn’t,” _mine is_ , “you’ve changed so much in the past few months Tony, doesn’t that mean something?”

“It isn’t enough.”

“You’ll always think that. And you know what, Tony? You’re wrong.” Tony looked mutinous at the thought, so he continued, “I use your weapons to kill Hydra, are those deaths on you? Or me?”

“You,” he said slowly, not wanting to agree.

Bucky nodded. “Now, I admit that it is much easier to use Stark weapons than anything else, and it can be argued that you should share some blame for that.” He didn’t think so, having been up close and personal with murderers and knowing that Tony was nothing like them. “However much blame you get from that though, Tony? You don’t need to punish yourself for it. When you saw the problem, you stopped it. You’re working to make the world a better place now, and _that’s_ your legacy. If the Expo means this much to you, then I’ll support it, but I want you to be doing it for the right reasons, not guilt.”

Tony drew his hands back to himself and glanced towards where U was rearranging the fridge. The ‘bots were much more food focused than Bucky could ever remember them being, but they did this sometimes, hyper fixated until they accomplished whatever goal they had in their circuits. “It’s not guilt.”

“Okay. Is there anything I can do to help?” Bucky offered.

Tony gave him a smile, and while it wasn’t quite back to normal, it was a step in the right direction.

* * *

The Expo was put together at a record pace, so quickly that Bucky marveled, once again, at what money could accomplish. Tony was his usual charming version of self for the audience when it opened, and they went wild. The problem was… Tony wasn’t switching off. They got home, and he was acting like Bucky didn’t belong there. He went to the ‘shop without so much as a backwards glance or real smile.

Bucky stared at the blank space where he’d been, frozen in place. Heavily, he sat on the couch. Something was obviously wrong, but Tony wasn’t talking to him. If Tony wasn’t talking to him, then it could be anything. His first thought was to ask JARVIS, but he wouldn’t have any luck there if Tony was actively keeping things from him, which he clearly was. DUM-E and U would’ve been helpful if they could talk, but Bucky couldn’t exactly question them with their limited communication and get the answers he needed.

The next option was Pepper. He’d seen her at the Expo-- sat next to her actually-- so he knew she was awake, and hopefully not busy.

“Hi Bucky,” she answered.

“Hey. Do you have a few minutes?”

“Give me just a second.” Bucky heard her typing and then she came back on. “Okay. What did you want to talk about?”

“Tony. Is he, uh- have you noticed anything off? Recently?”

“Bucky,” she said, her voice soft and sympathetic, “you can’t expect him to be back to normal so soon.”

“No I know- it’s just, he isn’t talking to me.”

“Give him time.”

“I have given him time. And then I’ve given him some more. He’s not going to come to me on his own.”

“It may not be anything,” Pepper reminded him. “Tony does this, sometimes. With the Expo and his Iron Man project, he’s busier than usual. Wait it out.”

Bucky wanted to argue, wanted to say that no, this _wasn’t_ Tony being Tony, this was Tony trying to deal with a problem on his own when he didn’t have to. He sighed. “Thanks anyways."

“I know you want this to be something you can fix, Bucky, but it’s not always that easy. Let him know you won’t leave, and you should be fine.”

“Yeah. Night, Pep. Thanks.”

“Goodnight.”

Bucky valued Pepper’s opinion highly, but this time… this time she was wrong, no two ways about it. He considered calling Rhodey for all of three seconds, but discarded the idea; if Pepper didn’t think there was a problem, Rhodey would think the same. He put his phone away, thinking that he was probably going to have to corner Tony and ask flat out what was wrong since anything less had already failed several times.

He decided, in a last ditch effort to not have to be that direct, to ask Tony to bed. They hadn’t had sex since before Afghanistan, so even if this didn’t help the main problem, maybe it would make Tony feel better. It was certainly worth a shot, and _god_ did Bucky miss being with Tony.

“Hey solnyshko,” he said, leaning against the doorway to the workshop and hooking the thumb of his prosthetic through a belt loop.

Tony hummed to show he heard, but didn’t look up.

“You comin’ to bed?”

“I’m not tired,” he said distractedly.

“Neither am I.”

Tony froze almost imperceptibly. “Oh. Um, I’m not really in the mood. See you in the morning though.” Tony was lying to him.

Bucky felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach. He’d assumed that if it was a relationship problem, Tony would come to him and they’d talk it over like the usually did, but if Tony didn’t… It would explain why Pepper didn’t notice anything wrong because for her, nothing _would_ be wrong. “Okay,” he said automatically, turning to leave, then stopping. If he left now, he wouldn’t sleep, Tony wouldn’t sleep, and nothing would be fixed, not even on the way to it. He turned back around and closed the door behind him, keeping him in the ‘shop.

Tony looked up when he heard the door shut, surprised to see Bucky still there.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“What? No, of course not.” Tony didn’t look at him when he said it though, so Bucky didn’t know what to think. He wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t being honest either.

“Okay,” he said slowly, walking forward. “Do you want to tell me what _is_ wrong then?”

“What, I can’t not be in the mood anymore?” Tony said, but his heart wasn’t in it. He sighed, reaching one hand up to tap on the arc reactor as his newest nervous tic. He got up to sit on the workshop’s lone couch, gesturing for Bucky to join him. “I was going to tell you,” he promised once they were both sitting, “but I wanted to fix it first, if I could. No need to worry you needlessly, you know? So, um, here goes. You remember me telling you about the arc reactor?”

Bucky nodded. It was impossible to forget, really, those mini-lessons so Bucky could help if something went wrong that Tony wasn’t capable of fixing at the time.

“The core’s palladium, and it isn’t- it’s not supposed to be in people. It’s, ah, poisoning me. I’ve been drinking these shakes,” he pointed to a half-empty glass of green liquid on one of the tables, “to counteract the effects while I try to find a replacement for the core, but there’s nothing.”

Bucky stared at the glass, then glanced at the fridge. U and DUM-E had been food-obsessed, he’d thought, but they weren't. They were just trying to take care of their father. “...What does that mean for you?” Bucky asked, hoping the answer wouldn’t be what he was thinking.

“It means that short of a miracle, I’m going to die of heavy metal poisoning.”

Bucky swallowed reflexively, trying to keep from crying. “When?”

“Four months,” Tony said, as if he hadn’t just destroyed Bucky’s world view, “if I stop using the suit.”

“Then stop using it,” he said immediately.

Tony looked at him, flitting through hurt and betrayed to settle on angry.

“It’s _killin’_ you, Tony.”

“It’s killing me faster, that’s not the same. I don’t want to live another four months if I can’t do what I love.”

Bucky dropped his head in his hands. He couldn’t argue with that, but Tony didn’t seem to care how this would affect Bucky. He hated himself for even thinking it-- Tony was dying and he wanted him to be more concerned with what _Bucky_ would do?-- but wasn’t he supposed to be something Tony loved too? He didn’t say it aloud though, knowing he would regret it if he did. “How long?”

“What?”

“How long will you live if you keep using the suit like you have been?”

Tony hesitated, and Bucky knew that Tony realized he’d made a mistake in not telling him sooner. “A month. Give or take three days.”

Bucky jerked his head up, staring at Tony in disbelief. “A _month_? When were you planning on tellin’ me? Five minutes before you died?”

“I didn’t want you to worry,” he muttered, eyes wide as he looked at Bucky. Gorgeous brown eyes that wouldn’t exist a month from now.

“Yeah how dare I worry about the love of my life and soulmate dying.” Bucky knew he should stop but- _a month_. “How could you not tell me? When did you figure this out?”

“I’ve always known.”

Bucky was floored. “You knew this entire time,” he said flatly. “And you didn’t tell me.” He cleared his throat and leaned back into the couch. “I remember us havin’ a talk about sharing important information a while back, sugar, you aren’t holding up your end here.”

“You’re not mad?” he asked tentatively.

“Of course I’m mad. Why didn’t you tell me?” he said, but the fight had left him. Tony hadn’t told him, nothing would change that.

Tony shrugged helplessly, looking desperate to have Bucky understand. “I was scared.”

“I could’ve helped.”

He ducked his head. “I know.”

Bucky sighed, reaching out a hand to cover Tony’s. He’d spent months thinking that time would help fix the problems they were having, but time was the last thing they had to spare. “Will you come to bed now?”

* * *

Bucky helped Tony put all his affairs in order. He tried to give his art collection to someone besides Pepper, but Bucky (thankfully) was able to talk him out of that. “Pepper’s spent years puttin’ it together, she’s going to kill you if you try to pull that.” He also gave Pepper the company, which Bucky personally thought was long overdue given Tony hated doing it and she _had_ been for the past decade. Rhodey got a suit, which he accepted suspiciously, but thanked Tony for profusely.

Tony hadn’t told either of them he was dying, and Bucky was about ready to lock all three of them in a closet until Tony confessed. What finally did it though, was Bucky saying that he refused to be the one to tell them after Tony was gone; Tony agreed that he shouldn’t have to deal with that ( _on top of losing your soulmate_ went unsaid). Pepper and Rhodey didn’t exactly take it well, but better than Bucky-- though that was to be expected, what with being soulmates and all.

The days were filled with Tony working on projects and Bucky helping where he could. Nights were spent with them holding each other, both trying to not have a breakdown.

Bucky finally asked about sex, wondering if Tony didn’t want to because of the effects of the poisoning. Tony lifted his shirt, showing sickly green and blue lines across his too pale skin spreading from the arc reactor. At first, he hadn’t wanted to look at it, let alone make Bucky deal with it, but now he was getting to the point of permanent nausea and couldn’t have sex even if he wanted to-- which, Tony assured him, he did, he just- couldn’t anymore.

Tony left in the suit and destroyed any of his weapons that he found. Poorly made copies of Stark weapons started cropping up, and Tony was determined to stop those as well. He would stumble out of the suit, pale, sweaty, and shaking and every time Bucky would think _This is it, this is the time putting in a fresh core won’t help_ , but it always did, and Tony kept living.

Tony Stark, the face of Stark Industries, threw a huge party, but neither of them attended. The alcohol was generous, the lights low, and no one noticed that Tony didn’t make an appearance. Everyone was talking about it, and that made it a success.

In the privacy of their home, they celebrated with take-out and a Star Wars marathon. DUM-E and U were even let out of the workshop for the event, though Bucky did spend hours the next day setting everything straight with JARVIS’s help.

Time passed, and Shield swooped in with a miracle.

Bucky and Tony had fought that morning-- well, ‘fought’ was an exaggeration. Tony wanted to go get donuts in the suit, Bucky thought it was an unnecessary use of the suit especially since they could drive there in less than an hour and asked him to reconsider, but Tony told him that it wouldn’t use much power, both because of the short flight and the fact that he wasn’t using weapons. Bucky had felt guilty regardless, knowing how much Tony was going through and not wanting to add to it. It wasn’t quite a fight, but Bucky had apologized all the same.

Tony had smiled and said, “I know you want me to stay alive for as long as I can, but I don’t want either of us to go through that. I’d waste away until I wasn’t me anymore.” Bucky could see his point, but… it wasn’t easy. He wanted to sink his claws in and demand that the earth give him this, that he be allowed to stay with his soulmate, no matter where that was.

But then Tony came home, cheeks a healthy pink for the first time in two weeks and hope in his eyes.

“What is that?” Bucky asked Tony, who was amidst a hologram, the blue glow highlighting the wonder on his face.

“A new element,” he said breathlessly, and for once it wasn’t because he was worn out by the stairs coming up from the ‘shop.

“Can it act as the new core?” It had to, Tony was acting like it could, had all-but said it could, but Bucky needed confirmation-- needed to hear him say there was real hope he would survive this.

Tony smirked at him, a spark in his eyes. “I’d love to try.”

* * *

Bucky had Tony in his lap-- where he’d been since inserting the new arc reactor and confirming that it worked-- and was hugging him. Fury came in and gave him a look that said he wanted him to let go of Tony; Bucky glared back and held him tighter.

Fury dropped two files on the table and sat across from them. He flipped them open and slid them closer so they could see (well, Tony could, the serum let Bucky see it from the other side of the room).

“The Avengers Initiative?” Tony said, skimming the file that had his name plastered to it. “I thought you scrapped this.”

“Recent developments have been awfully compelling to bring it back.”

Tony made a face at the paper in front of him. “Who wrote this assessment? So dry, really Nicky you could do better. I sound boring in this.”

“You’re never boring solnyshko,” Bucky reassured him.

“Agent Coulson,” Fury answered. “And it’s not in his job description to make you as colorful on paper as you are in real life.”

Tony hummed, unconvinced. “It’s everyone’s job to maintain how interesting I am in their writing. ‘Iron Man slash Tony Stark’,” he read, “‘Recommended for the Avengers’.” He snatched Bucky’s file from the table and skipped to the bottom. “‘Winter Soldier slash Bucky Barnes- Recommended for the Avengers’. Aw babe we’d be on the team together.”

“We would be.” Bucky looked at Fury and said, in clear dismissal, “We’ll think about it.” All three of them knew that they would be saying yes, but Fury was smart enough not to say that as he left, knowing that Tony would say no purely to spite him if he did.

**Author's Note:**

> The only other fic I'm planning rn for this series is The Avengers movie. So uh if someone wants something in addition to that, now would be a good time to ask. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr [@cami-chats](http://cami-chats.tumblr.com)


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